Shaunessy Goes West in Winter. by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Chapter 12

With Striker now gone, Carla quickly returned to her fretting state of mind and vividly recalled her first evening in New Mexico.

The setting sun produced the view of a beautiful pink assortment of cumulous clouds above it, as motionless as a still life. But unlike a still life, the pink quickly faded to grays, then proceeded to black, as the sun dived behind the mountains.

The landscape darkened and soon one would have difficulty differentiating the treetops from the sky, under the cloud infested full moon. It was time for her to go to work.

She dragged the stinking trunk out the front door and down the quiet dirt road. She chose to pass by the barren, empty lot next to her due to its “openness”; and entered the next lot because of the overgrowth of weeds, bushes and trees. The digging was much harder work than she first imagined and the sound of the shovel in the stillness echoed, as if it were a backhoe, unable to communicate warning beeps in the frigid winter night. She quickly worked up a sweat while only excavating enough earth to bury 20 percent of the trunk. She worried that she might not be able to finish the task by daybreak, as it was proving to be much more difficult than she

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anticipated. Fatigued, she took off her coat, stripping down to her loose fitting, deep blue T-shirt and torn blue jeans.

Unbeknownst to her Jorge heard the night magnified noises as he sat on a bench in a three sided run-in, located on the adjacent tree farm. He lived with his parents across the street and was considered mentally challenged or mildly retarded, but one would not notice this if the conversation was limited to plants, trees, weather or anything related to gardening, which he had been doing all his life. Sometimes he liked being completely alone, which was the case this dark night and he had come out to this spot to do his planning and thought about what work the trees needed the next day.

The noise of the shoveling disturbed him and piqued his curiosity. He exited the run-in to see what kind of intrusion his wish for privacy was suffering. Already having been in the dark for a half hour or so, his eyes had adjusted to the dim light and he actually could see well, the moments the full moon was not clouded. His ears fixed on the sound and he walked in its direction, the embalming nature of the winter night, intensified by a moderate but constant northern breeze.

He saw the woman’s breasts swinging in the ardent activity of attempting to shovel frozen dirt. She was too occupied to notice him. Strange, she was on the lot with a house no one had lived in as long as he could recall. He thought she might need

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some help and that he wouldn’t mind some activity to fend off the frigid air. He approached slowly, careful not to trip over any obstacles hiding in the dark.

As she again took a break from her labors, she saw him and the words; “Oh, shit” came to her mind. She thought that the game was over, her mind racing to find some kind of approach or an airtight alibi.

Jorge said; “What are you doing?”

Carla replied; “I’m trying to bury my dog.”

“This time of night?”

“I didn’t want anyone to know.”

“You don’t live here, do you?”

“No, I live a little up the road.”

“Why not bury him there?”

Carla couldn’t think of any logical answer that would wash, so she said; “I had a dream telling me this was the right place.

Don’t you believe in dreams?”

He eyed her full figure and thought of some dreams that he entertained and grinned at her, saying; “Some do come true.”

She noticed his interest, needed help and had gathered from his demeanor that he wasn’t the brightest star in the night sky, so she walked right to him, one hand caressing her 40D’s and put the other inside his pants, feeling the elevated structure.

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He was shocked and nervously pulled away and she worried that his seeming interest might only be in conversation, so she again reached out and massaged the protrusion, saying; “Come on, don’t you like me?”

He thought about photos he had seen in magazines and on the internet that his father told him were not real, the result of some kind of trick photography. He silently stared at her lowered eyes as she fondled him. She said; “Oh, I like you a lot!”

He undid his pants and she dropped to her knees and anxiously showed her predilection. Her gourmet feeder furiously played the flute while her hands explored the attachments. She then stood and pulled up his pants, admiring her work as she said; “It’s too cold out here. Help me bury my dog and we can go back to my house where it’s nice and warm.”

The idea appealed to him and he extended both hands, cupping her breasts, saying “Okay. Then we play?”

“Yeah ..... Any game you like. But, this is our little secret, right?”

“Right.”

“The dog, too. I don’t want anyone to know where he is.

It’s bad karma if they dig him up.”

With a garbled, thick tongued voice, Jorge asked; “Car-mah? Was that your dog’s name?”

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Surprised at the question, Carla improvised; “Ah, ......

yeah. My dream said he should never, ever be dug up.”

”Oh, okay, our little secret.”

She watched his firm body perform and a few thoughts ran through her mind as she saw the shovel easily entering the stone cold dirt; “He obviously works at a job that gives him a lot of exercise. This looks like it could be fun. I hope he doesn’t ask any more questions and I hope he doesn’t get compelled to brag about his exploits.” The latter was a terrifying thought, but under the circumstances, one she thought she’d just have to live with and hope for the best.

Jorge thought about her naked body doing his bidding; that he was probably doing something bad but he didn’t care; and that maybe his father didn’t know everything there was to know.

When the hole was big enough, Jorge pulled the trunk and said; “This must be one gigantic dog,” and he tried to raise the locked lid.

Carla slammed her foot down on it and said in a terse whisper; “Don’t. I couldn’t take seeing him dead again. He was 120 pounds, but I also put his things in with him. Quit playing around in the cold. If you hurry up we can go get warm and toasty sooner.” She again put her left hand on his pants and pleadingly added; “I want it in my mouth.”

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Jorge had never been talked to in this manner before and enjoyed it enormously. While he was anxious to explore her earthly delights, he also suspected that there was more here than met his eye. The secular part of the thought took command and he forgot his suspicions, as he watched Carla gyrate. He pulled the trunk into the waiting subterranean lair, filled the hole with dirt and spread sticks and stones around the surface, to camouflage the activity as much as possible.

He was finished and she led him to her house, Jorge carrying the shovel. At her property line he asked; “Where do you want this?”

Her job done, as well as it could be under the circumstances of uninvited intrusion, she felt amused and playful, answering; “Sometimes I keep it here, sometimes I keep it there and sometimes I keep it in the other place,” as she pointed at various locations on her property. “Or maybe you can think of another location for it.”

She had already surprised him quite a bit and he had no idea what she was grinning about now. Confused, without a sense of clear direction, he stood it against the house on the driveway, the location in his closest proximity.

They went inside and he watched her strip as he did the same. She again eyed the toned body in front of her, walked to

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him, licked his chest and slowly worked her way down to her favorite spot.

Without conscious instruction her mind retreated from the current pleasantries, its wings fluttering like a bird attempting an escape from a speeding hawk. She was jolted back to thoughts of ugly days three years prior. Having left the apartment of a “client” she found particularly distasteful, the cab dropped her at the corner of Avenue A and Bleeker Street at 10PM. The street’s darkness was an improvement over the day’s merciless illumination of the ominous groups of people constantly hanging around, the putrid detail of the decaying buildings and the street’s gutters, seemingly encrusted with permanent garbage. The tiny sense of improvement was demolished when she saw Feldon’s black Lincoln Town Car parked in front of her. As she passed it, she considered going somewhere else, but her weariness overruled and sent her “home.” Funny word,

“home,” the rat trap apartment was leased to Feldon and despite her having lived there two years, it contained few of her possessions. The words from some song came to mind. She couldn’t remember which or the tune, but she recalled something about; “old enough to know that it’s just a scam.”

She opened the unlocked door to 1D, anxious to get out of the hallway’s smell of piss, cigarette smoke and some garbage of an indeterminate origin, but reticent to see twerpy Feldman with

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his probable predictable harangue. He was sitting on a couch facing away from her. At least she didn’t have to see the spectacled Alfred E. Neuman face that rested on his five foot seven, one hundred thirty pound torso. The “Friar Tuck” fringe on Feldon’s forty-two year old head moved, as he must have been making one of his grimacing faces as he whined; “Carla, I understand you’ve been refusing some dates,” not yet deigning to turn and observe her.

“So?”

“So, how are you ever going to repay the money you owe me?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe with the help of a few of my friends with the bent noses.” He remained seated, but twisted his body, giving her the benefit of his full facial countenance. She had already been accosted by the bent noses, didn’t like it and wondered how this little jerk managed to get a mob tie. Money had to be the simple answer.

Tired and upset, she half shouted; “Dammit, I’m doing the best I can!”

Sidney calmly said; “It’s not enough, Carla. The amount you owe me keeps going up when I add in the interest and follow up work ........ ”

“I know you’re cheating me.”

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“Nonsense. The point is that the escort agency tells me they can get you three times the amount of work you’ve been doing, but you refuse it.”

Carla knew that was true, but she found it difficult and revolting to be coerced to tolerate every weird freak in the city. There seemed no end, as most months, no matter the amount of distasteful “work” she had done, the amount owed rose. After two years she owed thirty percent more than she had at the outset. She wished she had tried to read the contract’s miniscule fine print before she signed it, but at the time was too anxious to have the surgery performed. Besides, who ever read those microscopic letters, if possible only with better than 10-10 vision anyway? They only subsequently discover that the devil was indeed, in the details. This was irrelevant ancient history anyway and she had to try to deal with the reality of today. She said; “Tell them to stop finding every sicko in the city.”

“Look who’s talking.” His placid eyebrow raised grin turned her stomach. She couldn’t think of any response. She didn’t want to endure the same old tired conversation. He took a slip of paper from his shirt pocket, turned his head away from her and held the paper in the air, showing his disdain for her.

He distractedly and nonchalantly said; “Here’s five dates for

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tomorrow. You will be a good girl, won’t you?” saying “girl”

with overly obvious sarcasm.

Carla’s breaking point was reached. She saw nothing but the need to get out of her situation and she was surprised at the calm clarity her mind now had. The little nerd never appeared to have any fighting experience. She was bigger than him. She walked over as if to take the slip of paper and instead locked her right forearm at the front of his neck and pulled her right hand back and up with her left, in anger, using all the strength she could muster.

She pulled, pulled and pulled, enjoying watching him physically squirm as she had been squirming emotionally. He used his hands in an attempt to loosen her grip. Though his feet were still on the floor he was unable to rise from the hanging position, as whenever he tried to rise, the force of her arms pulling his head back made him unable to get any leverage.

It was as if a person tried to lift a heavy, four-legged bench entirely off the ground, using the lowest part of two legs located on the same side. She kept at it and kept at it, knowing there would be no second chance. The superior might of her arms pulling back on his neck twisted his head upward, his gaze now on the ceiling’s cracks. She looked down at his bulging eyes and the drool coming from his mouth and came close to laughter. She felt completely in charge of things for the

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first time in a long time and she relished it. She wondered how she was accomplishing her task so easily and was reminded of an incident she had witnessed on Forty-second Street, when it required thirteen cops to subdue one out-of-his-mind, puny guy, demonstrating the super strength of madness. “When you have to get something done the first thing to do is get mad.”

When the body went limp, she kept the choke hold on for another minute to make certain, counting one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, until sixty.

She slowly released her grip on the body, still afraid that it might spring at her. When it didn’t, she moved to its front and admired her work. The face was better looking in death than it was in life, improved by its peaceful stillness. The pathetic squirrelly torso was now enhanced by a neck severely bent to one side, possibly broken, suggesting a new name; Igor.

She thought; “If he was formerly Dr. Frankenstein, I must have changed him to Igor, after he changed me to the monster. Seems perversely fair poetic justice.” She found the consideration momentarily amusing. She put a finger under Igor’s nose, held it there a few seconds and detected no air movement. She was now elated.

She noted that her new exhilaration had completely overcome her former fatigue and she thought the rest of the operation would be easy. She already had a place to go, a tiny, two-room,

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old house in New Mexico, purchased sight unseen. She effected the purchase utilizing the held back, sizable cash tips she had earned working for the escort service over the past two tears.

All she had to do was pack her clothes into a suitcase and get the limp body into a trunk filled with the garish outfits and sexual toys that the former “doctor” had periodically brought over. She had a second thought. Though it was more work, she decided to first remove the paraphernalia from Feldon’s final resting place, on the small chance that they might provide him with some pleasure. “Who can be sure of such things?”

She found it hideous to touch her lukewarm, former, little nemesis, but she rose to the occasion by concentrating on “Do this once and it’s all over.”

She dragged the heavy trunk to the back seat of her dented 2003 silver Toyota, which was parked on Bleeker Street, in front of the apartment building, got one end on the back seat, grunted and pushed in the remainder. She went back for her clothing suitcase, looked around for anything she might have forgotten and left for New Mexico, careful not to exceed the speed limit.

She quickly decided, as it seemed painfully obvious to her, that the safest place for her to dispose of the body was New Mexico. She knew New York City and concluded that it was too packed with people to warrant the risk of being seen. While she drove through the rest of the highways, with which she was

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totally unfamiliar, she didn’t want to start the arduous task of burial where she would risk being surprised by something she didn’t know. How could she be sure? She could find a seemingly solitary spot, only to be descended on by an entourage of bird watchers. The best bet was to get to her new home, scout around some and pick a hidden, quiet spot. Of course she would have to tolerate a decaying, stinking body for the entirety of the trip, but she thought she was well prepared, because of years of practice.

She was amused to find that she now felt the tranquility her passenger had displayed earlier in the evening. He no doubt retained it, but she re-established her ability to feel. Feldon didn’t have that to begin with. She laughed out loud as she drove the darkness of Route 78, through New Jersey.

Carla’s mind returned to thoughts of the surprising, but pleasant first evening spent with Jorge.

She was startled out of the necessarily convoluted memory, memory within a memory, back to original memory, day dream by the sound of a car coming down her very un-private road.

Shaunessy, with Striker behind the wheel, had driven from the station to Carla’s house, parked and got out, guns drawn.

She was now dressed in her Vista de la Feria uniform; a light gray, University of New Mexico sweatshirt and loose black denim

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pants, suitable for un-announced company. When she saw her visitors through a window, her first thought was that they were interested in a kinky threesome. But since this cop business had started and upon seeing their resolute expressions, she feared the beginning of the end. The morning wind again blew in the same bulbous dark clouds that had again superseded the sun’s attempt at a showing.

Shaunessy, with his gun in his left hand, knocked on her door with his right and yelled; “Open up, Carla. We know you’re in there.”

Jorge, watching from his window seat across the street, bolted out the door and ran down the dirt road toward Carla’s tiny adobe, freezing in the twenty degree, overcast, windy, winter, late morning. He was wearing just a simple T-shirt and baggy black pants encrusted with old dirt earned from his prior landscaping jobs.

She opened the door and the two cops, Shaunessy citing that they had obtained a warrant, quickly entered, leaving the door open. As he stated her Miranda rights, Shaunessy pulled her arms behind Carla’s back, cuffed her and said; “You’re under arrest for the murder of Sidney Feldon.” She looked into Striker’s eyes and when he averted the look, she put her head down and counted the bricks in the floor, intending to attempt to divert her mind from the horror of reality. She noted that

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some bricks appeared to be much dirtier than the majority and wondered why. She soon saw that it was merely due to their placement and number of surface irregularities.

Striker searched the house for possible evidence.

Shaunessy was glad there were no reporters or children witnessing the event and felt compelled to say something. He offered a question; “Jorge filed a ‘confession,’ telling the whole story. Why didn’t you kill him, too?”

Carla felt that she didn’t have anything more to lose, so she responded in a perky tone; “First of all, he didn’t know the WHOLE story. No one does. He never hurt me. I didn’t think I could get away with it and I liked him and the sex.”

Jorge had crept up and was now standing in the open door and he heard her response. He started crying uncontrollably and clumsily mouthed; “I’m sorry, Carla. My father forced me.”

Shaunessy and Striker brushed by him as they lead Carla to the police car. She turned back, looked at Jorge and seeing his sincerity, she gave him the faintest hint of a smile. She said;

“It’s all right. Some of us are just cursed by God.”

For the first time Jorge was certain that he knew exactly what Carla meant.

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